Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.(Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last.(Friends of Israel Initiative)

Monday, 31 December 2012

Earlier this month the Washington Post carried a review by Jennifer Rubin of Lela Gilbert's new book, Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner.

Writes the reviewer, inter alia:

'The meat of Gilbert’s book and its uniqueness among hundreds on the Middle East published every year, however, documents the virtually ignored Jewish "nakba," a world used mostly by Arabs to described the "tragedy" of Israel’s birth....

The media of course have virtually forgotten (or hidden) this expulsion, preferring to fixate on the Palestinian refugee problem and the so-called “right of return.” That imbalance in the historical record and journalism of the 20th century goes hand in hand with coverage of the Gaza wars that focuses on the Israeli strikes on terrorist leaders and ignores the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilians.

But in this nakba the Jews now, tragically have company. The title of the book on one hand describes the intertwined history and tradition of Jews and Christians, but it also has become a description of the deadly agenda of Islamic fundamentalists: First, the Saturday people, second the Sunday people. In other words, first rid these countries of Jews and next go after the Christians. This they do with near international impunity. In Gilbert’s vivid and at time (appropriately) gruesome account of murders, church bombings and other anti-Christian atrocities she paints a portrait of a human rights catastrophe playing out before our eyes and a world gone mad, indifferent to and largely unaware of the plight of Christians. She meticulously documents the atrocities against the Egyptian Copts and other Christians from Nigeria to Iran to Indonesia and Afghanistan.

Her message is poignant, namely that Jews and Christian share a common tradition and faith, founded on ” biblical principles, founded on the sanctity of life, affirming that humans are made in the image of God . . . Our roots are firmly planted in common ground. … We have chosen life and we deplore the Islamist culture of death. We needn’t fight our battles alone.” That’s an optimistic note for a tragic story in which Christians and Jews, who certainly have at times not been on the same side, have a new brotherhood of faith, forged in the fire of Islamic fundamentalism. It is a timely reminder of the nature of our shared enemy and the obligation for shared defense in the cultural, ideological and military war against the jihadist culture of death.'

From Nick Gray of recently established site Christian Middle East Watch comes an insightful article entitled "Christian NGOs and Israel" that begins:

'A few days ago, the Commentator published an article by me ... on the reasons why so many Christian organisations working in the Middle East are hostile towards Israel. There are a good number of excellent pro-Israel organisations, who seek to serve both sides of the divide in Israel and who successfully keep an apolitical stance. Why can so many others not do the same. If the organisations working in Palestinian areas insist on being so poisonously anti-Israel, why do the pro-Israel groups not behave in the same way? Who is showing a more Christian face to the world; the ones serving Palestinians while pouring vitriol on Israel, or the ones quietly serving both communities and hating neither?

Dexter Van Zile ("Why are Christian charities bashing Israel?" 15th December) admirably exposed a major problem in the Christian development agency universe; a problem that too often seems to focus on only one geographical area in the whole world. Embrace the Middle East (an evolution of a long-standing agency with a history of excellent work on behalf of the poor of the Middle East), Christian Aid, World Vision, The Amos Trust and many others do provide aid to the poor and they do engage in commendable development projects in the cultural and religious turmoil we call the Middle East. Sadly, however, the majority of such charities seem to have an unacceptable political bias where this one geographical area is concerned - that narrow strip of land popularly known as "Israel-Palestine" or "Palestine-Israel" depending on your worldview! As someone who has worked in the Christian charity sector for over 25 years and with a special concern in the Middle East, I would like to offer a four point rationale for this anomaly in the mindsets of otherwise thoroughly admirable, caring organisations.' Read the rest here

And from Hadar Sela the indispensable new site BBC Watch comes a characteristically masterly exposé of the BBC's persistent failure to appreciate that the 1949 Armistice lines do not constitute borders. See that excellent post here

'Diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican are set to considerably cool following the Pope granting a private audience to Mahmoud Abbas on 17 December.

Their meeting came at a time of growing political crisis engendered by the passage of the UN General Assembly resolution on 29 November that reaffirmed

"the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967"

The Pope seemingly overlooked any discussion of the implications of this integral part of the resolution that also recognised the State of Palestine as a non-member observer state in the General Assembly – a view confirmed by the following communique issued by the Vatican:

"The cordial discussions made reference to the recent Resolution approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations by which Palestine was recognised as a Non-member Observer State of the aforementioned Organisation. It is hoped that this initiative will encourage the commitment of the international community to finding a fair and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which may be reached only by resuming the negotiations between the Parties, in good faith and according due respect to the rights of both."

The Pope was apparently unaware that the only matter left to be negotiated between the parties as a result of "this initiative " was the timing of the eviction of 600,000 Jews currently living in this " State of Palestine" as defined by the General Assembly.

Abbas had made this racist view very clear on 28 July 2010 when Wafa – the official Palestinian news agency – reported the following remark by Abbas in Cairo:

"I'm willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as NATO forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land."

Could the Pope have failed to understand that the Resolution also left no room for negotiating the boundaries of this "State of Palestine" – that the General Assembly had preemptively determined that it should comprise 100per cent of the territory won from Jordan by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War?

Would cordial discussions have occurred had the Pope taken the opportunity to urge Abbas to recognise Israel as the Jewish National Home and offer Palestinian citizenship to those Jews who did not want to leave their current homes?

Resumption of negotiations by "the Parties in good faith and according due respect to the rights of both" in such circumstances is a pure pipe dream.

The Abbas audience was a papal faux pas for several reasons.

First – the Pope should not have blessed the audience with overt political significance by accepting from Abbas the gift of a mosaic of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem bearing the inscription that it was presented to him by "the President of the State of Palestine" - a farcical nomenclature that had only been sanctioned that very day by the Chief of Protocol at the UN - Yeocheol Yoon.

Secondly – the Pope was clearly violating clause 11(2) of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement Between The Holy See And The State Of Israel which provides:

"The Holy See, while maintaining in every case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual teaching-office, deems it opportune to recall that owing to its own character, it is solemnly committed to remaining a stranger to all merely temporal conflicts, which principle applies specifically to disputed territories and unsettled borders."

Remaining a stranger to this temporal conflict would have allowed the Pope to escape any criticism as a result of this inappropriate audience.

Thirdly – Article 2.2 of the Fundamental Agreement further avers:

"The Holy See takes this occasion to reiterate its condemnation of hatred, persecution and all other manifestations of antisemitism directed against the Jewish people and individual Jews anywhere, at any time and by anyone"

Failing to condemn the "President of the State of Palestine" during the audience for his known manifestations of antisemitism makes a mockery of the Fundamental Agreement.

Fourthly – The Pope's political foray no doubt inspired his own appointed nominee as the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, the Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, also to make a political statement in his annual pre-Christmas homily.

Archbishop Twal told his followers at his headquarters in Jerusalem's Old City that this year's festivities were doubly joyful, celebrating:

"the birth of Christ our Lord and the birth of the state of Palestine. The path (to statehood) remains long, and will require a united effort,"

Archbishop Twal – who was born in Jordan – had told Vatican Radio on 21 June 2008:

"The majority of our priests, nuns, schools families are in Jordan. We need a link to Jordan…"

That link will certainly not come from the State of Palestine designated by the UN General Assembly – since its realisation is simply not going to eventuate.

"If you want to touch Jews, Muslims, Christians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Cypriots, Europeans all together ... then you have to consider every comma"

The Archbishop would have done well to have remembered this sage advice before uttering his Christmas Eve message - understanding that what he said would not touch at least 600,000 Jews – but cause them immeasurable hurt.

Indeed those who are playing charades with the newly crowned President of the State of Palestine are engaging in a world of make believe – where the words and commas in the Mandate for Palestine, the Montevideo Convention, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, Security Council Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap – are apparently no longer worth the paper they are written on.

One can now add the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel to these discarded international agreements.

This does not bode well for any possible peaceful resolution of the long running conflict between Jews and Arabs.

The last Pope to bear Pope Benedict’s name – Benedict XV – enthusiastically endorsed the Jews’ right to reconstitute their national home in what was then Palestine when he told Zionist leader Nahum Sokolov at an audience in 1917 :

"Nineteen hundred years ago Rome destroyed your homeland and when you seek to rebuild it, you seek a path which leads via Rome… Yes this is the will of Divine Providence, this is what the Almighty desires."

Violating Vatican vows this time round is certainly not going to entice Israel to beat a path to Rome as it continues to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient, biblical and internationally sanctioned homeland.'

Friday, 28 December 2012

And as the sheikh from Down Under (Dr Ibrahim Salem) says in this clip from Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV (26 December), they came to learn, and felt like they were "on top of the world". In return, their genial host tells them that their visit demonstrates the unity of the worldwide umma in "the battle for the liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine" ...

On 9 February 2011 the BBC radio's Today programme broadcast an interview with career diplomat Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, British ambassador to Israel from 2001-3, and subsequently ambassador, successively, to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

All that was contentious about his remarks is best described in a critique written that same day by Melanie Phillips:

"....Sir Sherard appeared to be inhabiting a looking-glass world. Every single thing he said was, frankly, a monstrous inversion of history, justice and rationality.

Anyone who really loves Israel and wants it to survive, he said, wants it to make the peace that has been on offer since 1937, when the British proposed the division of Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs.

But it was not the Jews who turned down that offer – but the Arabs. The Jews accepted it. It was not the Jews who resisted the two-state solution proposed by the UN partition of 1947, but the Arabs who tried to exterminate Israel at birth. The Jews had accepted it. It was not the Jews who resisted the formation of a Palestine state between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan and Egypt illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza – it never occurred to the Arabs to suggest it. It was not Israel which resisted the two state solution in 2000, or under Ehud Olmert’s premiership: it was Israel which actually offered the Arabs most of the disputed land to establish a state of their own. It was the Arabs who rejected it and made war instead on the Jews. What on earth is Sir Sherard talking about?

Next, he told us that no-one is calling into question Israel’s right to exist. Nice of him. But – there was a ‘but’. If it wanted to exist in a reasonable form, he said, it would do so not by keeping the Arabs down but by making a deal with them to live in peace. But all Israel wants to do is live in peace with them; it’s the Arabs who reject that proposition. Nor does Israel ‘keep them down’, as Sir Sherard so offensively claimed: all its military or repressive measures are in place solely to prevent more Israelis from being murdered, because the Arabs refuse to make the peace and make war instead. How can Sir Sherard so grotesquely misrepresent this?

Next, he intoned that it is not in Israel’s interests for there to be a single bi-national state. You don’t say. ‘If they want a Jewish state in the Middle East’, he said,’ there has to be a peace deal and they have to do it soon’. What? ‘If they want a Jewish state in the Middle East?’ Since when was this a questionable proposition? Presumably he means it won't stay Jewish if it rules the Arabs in the territories. But Israel doesn't want to rule the Arabs in the territories. It has repeatedly offered to give away most of the territories. Sir Sherard seems not to have noticed but the Arabs keep refusing to take them. And if Israel gives them up and Iran promptly moves in -- the most likely scenario -- what price Sir Sherard's Jewish state then?

And has no-one told Sir Sherard that it is Abbas and co who are refusing to negotiate with Israel, not the other way round? And that Abbas and co are refusing to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state – ever? Might that not, in the mind of even Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, be a pretty good reason why ‘the door is closing on the two-state solution’?

But no – Sir Sherard went on to identify the real source of the problem, which apparently lay in Washington as much as in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Ah yes – those Zionist fanatics in the Obama administration. And he concluded ‘We will all suffer if Israel persists in this present course of trying to survive by force of arms’.

Let’s unpack that poisonous little sentence. He is suggesting that Israel is wilfully and perversely choosing to wage war rather than live in peace. Israel, the one country which cannot afford to sacrifice a single young person but has had to sacrifice so many in the endless war that has been forced upon it purely in order to stave off annihilation, is thus being represented as choosing not to live in peace – and putting the rest of the world at risk as a result...."

Earlier this month, in a lecture to the Conservative Middle East Forum, Sir Sherard was at it again,saying, inter alia:

'The first and greatest thing we can do in the West is to right the
wrong that has been done to the Palestinians. We can never right it
completely, but in Israel’s own interest, we should be helping the only
the country that can solve this problem, not on its own but without it
nothing can be done. And following the recommendations which Lord Peel
made in 1937, he called it then, “partition,” so did the United Nations
Special Committee on Palestine in 1947, later Presidents Carter,
Clinton, even George W. Bush, whom we should never forget was the first
American President to promise a Palestinian state, he did so in 2002 and
assured his listeners that it would be established by 2005, but
delivering that which only America can do.

Helping America break the
stranglehold that an ill-informed Israel lobby has over American
politics is the biggest single contribution that we can make, and it’s a
debt that we as Conservatives, we as Britons, still have, in my view,
sitting on our account. It does, in my view, mean that sometimes we have
to be more conditional in our support of America and perhaps a little
bit more French and a little less British, if you get my drift.
Sometimes for the Americans, and those in the American system, who know
what needs to be done, a little bit of pressure from London would, I
think, help them in their task, and a little bit of short term
turbulence would be a small price to pay for discharging the debt.

I say this as a Hebrew-speaking, former Ambassador to Israel, someone
who has deep affection for the Jewish people. I believe passionately
that Israel on its present course is embarked on a pathway to assisted
suicide: suicide assisted by the Congress of the United States. The idea
that this problem can be solved by walling up the Palestinians in the
Middle Eastern equivalent of the Bantustans, which the South African
Government embarked on in the 1940s, is not only offensive morally, it
is deeply out of keeping with everything we know of human history. It
will not work, it cannot work, it should not work. And anyone who has a
real affection for the Jewish people will want to help them avoid this
looming disaster, further disaster in their history.

And one of the collateral benefits of peace with Israel, a just
settlement in Palestine, will be, if I may put it crudely, to put the
Jews back in the Middle East. Because, one of the many examples of
collateral damage from the creation of a national home for the Jewish
people in Palestine, has been to remove the cultural and commercial
yeast which the Jewish communities provided in Baghdad, in Damascus, in
Aleppo, in Cairo, in Alexandria, right across the Middle East....

Imagine London, imagine New York, without the cultural and commercial
yeast provided by Jewish communities... It was a dawn which broke, but a false dawn,
with the Camp David accords, where it was possible to go by bus from
Cairo to Tel Aviv and back again, and one saw the beginnings of
engagement, but it was all abandoned with good reason starting with the attack on the Osirak reactor.....'

In his lecture Sir Sherard made some thought-provoking points. However, as Melanie Phillips observed in 2011:

"Let’s be
clear. There is one overwhelming reason for the continuation of the
Middle East impasse, the deaths of so many Israeli innocents, the
hardships of the Arabs in the territories and the escalating danger to
both Israel and the world. From the very start of this terrible conflict
in the 1920s, when the Arabs in Palestine started to murder Jews in
order to stop their return to their ancestral homeland, the British
response was to reward that terror by offering the Arabs part of the
Jews’ legally binding entitlement.

That pernicious and
amoral response has continued to this day – led by the British but
echoed down the decades by America and Europe. The more terrorism
perpetrated by the Arabs, the more Britain, America and Europe treated
them as statesmen fighting for a just cause and tried to force Israel to
sacrifice its security to realise that cause. But if terrorism is
rewarded and its victims punished, those perpetrating such aggression
will merely step it up. That is precisely what has happened.

It
is attitudes such as those displayed this morningby Sir Sherard ... which exculpate the Arab
aggressors and punish their Israeli victim, which is the main reason why
there is no peace in the Middle East.... "

Thursday, 27 December 2012

Now, here's an intriguing article, by Evelyn Gordon of the US-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

It begins:

'If there were a prize for the Arab country that has done most to promote Arab-Israeli peace recently, I'd seriously consider nominating Saudi Arabia. Admittedly, that's a counterintuitive choice: Riyadh doesn't even recognize Israel and shows no signs of doing so anytime soon; moreover, it finances the spread of extremist Islamic ideology. But Saudi-funded papers have been doing something that may be far more important than another handshake on the White House lawn: providing a platform for Arab journalists and public figures to challenge the dominant Middle Eastern narrative of Israel as the root of all evil.

Consider, for instance, a column published last month in Asharq Al-Awsat, a paper owned by a member of the Saudi royal family and known for its support of the Saudi monarchy. Written by the paper's then-deputy editor-in-chief, Adel Al Toraifi, and titled "Who holds Hamas' terrorism to account?" the column blamed not Israel, but Hamas, for Palestinian casualties during both the second intifada and the recent fighting in Gaza.

During the intifada, wrote Al Toraifi, "Only a small number of Palestinians died in the first weeks." But then, "Hamas and other factions decided to militarize the intifada through the use of suicide attacks, costing the Palestinians nearly 2,000 lives in less than two years."

Similarly, when smaller factions began "sabotaging the truce in Gaza," Hamas "did not condemn their attacks, rather its leaders talked about the victory that was achieved through the missile fire." Consequently, "a hundred Palestinians have died and what remains of the dilapidated infrastructure there has been destroyed."....'

Ex-Likud member Naftali Bennett, leader of Israel's Jewish Home party, vigorously opposes the creation of a Palestinian State.

Based on his conviction of what is absolutely crucial for Israel's security requirements, his plan for peace entails the annexation by Israel of the approximately 60 per cent of the West Bank designated under the Oslo Accords as Area C (see map at left)..

In return, the Palestinian Authority would be given enhanced jurisdiction over the parts designated Areas A and B, in which Ramallah and other major Palestinian population centres lie.

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

Here's a cause for the "pro-Palestinian" sisterhood to embrace – an aspect of life in President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority that is rarely reported by the West's Israel-bashing media outlets: the so-called "honour killings" of Palestinianwomen, and the leniency with which the perpetrators are treated.

Under
the existing penal code, drawn up in 1960 during Jordan's jurisdiction
(1948-67) over the West Bank, the maximum custodial sentence for "honour killings"
is six months.

Wrote Harriet Sherwood in the Guardian last year following the brutal killing in 2010 of Hebron University student Aya Baradiya,

"Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is thought there are around 20 such crimes in the West Bank and Gaza each year. Women who have been raped or molested, or are victims of incest, are considered to have stained a family's reputation. Such acts of violation are rarely admitted by the victim's family."

But such was the outcry over Aya Baradiya's gruesome fate that in 2010 Mr Abbas (who had earlier received an unrelated petition signed by 8000 Palestinian women for a get-tough policy on "honour killings") promised to amend the penal code in order to guarantee the stiffest punishment for such a crime.

What he actually did was to suspend an article in the penal code of 1960 that stipulated pardon for any wife murderer who had committed his crime on finding the wife in bed with another man.

This was in effect an empty gesture, since the article had never been had never once been acted upon.

In 2009 Abbas had ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women, but sharia prevents its full implementation.

To quote from Harriet Sherwood's article again:

'In Surif, Yasmine Alheeh, 29, minding a clothes shop, says she approves of the legal change [to the article in the penal code]. "There are a lot of things that are hard for a woman to do [in Palestinian society]. A woman has no personal freedom. It's OK to work, but you can't make personal choices."

Nearby, in a vegetable shop, Jalal Danah, 25, says women's actions are limited by Islam. "Our religion does not allow a woman to go out and practise her life without restriction. This would lead to corruption," he says.'

And a currentreport, by Soraya al-Ghussein and Hannah Patchett for the Ma'an News Agency, quotes Abbas's legal advisersa Hassan al-Ouri as explaining that the UN Convention will only be implemented "so long as it doesn’t contravene
Islamic code".

There are no plans to outlaw "honour killings," al-Ouri told Ma'an:.

"Why change it [the law]? This would cause serious problems....What we need is a new culture.

.... Look, we are for total equality but if there is a basic tenet of
Islamic code that we would be forced to change under [the UN Convention], then people
would revolt and brand us as non-believers."

Monday, 24 December 2012

Yes, that time of the year is upon us when the Israel-demonisers intensify their Open Season on the Jewish State.

As usual there are the alternative Israel-demonising lyrics to familiar carols, and the Israel-demonising cards sold by a number of NGOs, some even depicting Jesus not as a Jew but as a Palestinian. I wrote about this in detail a couple of years ago, and as NGO Monitor demonstrates here it's the same story this year.

In Ireland, the University College Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign hasissued such cards, one depicting

"Mary and baby Jesus surrounded by pictures of
violence and suffering among which is a photo of what looks like an
Israeli soldier aiming his rifle a Palestinian mother and child.

That
particular postcard comes with a letter the publisher, the UCC
Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the perpetuates the popular Irish myth
that were Mary alive in our days, she would be unable to deliver Jesus
as recorded in the New Testament because Israeli soldiers would have
detained her at the Bethlehem checkpoint, because Mary was a
Palestinian! As such, Mary would have been forced to give birth at the
checkpoint, as all Palestinian women are apparently forced to do...

Another
card shows the three wise men on the way to visit Jesus after his
birth,but they are unable to reach Bethlehem because of the Israeli
security wall."

In response to such provocation and ignorance, the Israeli Embassy in Dublin posted to its own Facebook page the following comment:

"A thought for Christmas... If Jesus and mother Mary were alive
today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being
lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians."

An immediate furore followed, and after half an hour or so the comment was removed and this one substituted:

"To whom it may concern, an image of Jesus and Mary with a derogatory
comment about Palestinians was posted without the consent of the
administrator of the Facebook page. We have removed the post in question
immediately. Apologies to anyone who may have been offended. Merry
Christmas!"

(Boyd Barrett, who apparently once campaigned for Hezbollah bigwig Ibrahim Moussawi to be allowed to address a conference in Dublin, is on record as saying declaring that Israel is "a state built on violence, oppression and apartheid" and "has no right to exist as long as it denies rights to Palestinians".)

Opined a spokeswoman for the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

"It is indicative of the racism that
underpins the whole Zionist project."

But as Nurit Tinari Modai, deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy, explained later:

"The use of the symbols of Christianity in a political context is considered acceptable as part of anti-Israel campaigns, Ireland! These symbols have been used in such a way many times in the past decade. Jesus and Mary have become a weapon in the hands of those who hate Israel in Ireland, and our post on Facebook should be seen in the context of this local discourse and as a response to the anti-Israel Christmas cards....

The identification of Mary and Jesus as Palestinians is clear, and is quite pervasive. Not a few of the Irish actually believe that Jesus was an Arab Palestinian! In a Christian country like Ireland, it shouldn't be a sin for us to occasionally point out the historical fact that Jesus was a Jew."

Still on the subject of Irish Israel-haters, these perpetual activists (complete with giant open letter to Her Majesty) against the presence of the Steinmetz diamond among temporary exhibits at the Tower of London (see my earlier post here) to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, seemed positively perplexed to learn that they've been demonstrating in vain, the diamond being no longer on display:

To save face, they're claiming it as a BDS victory, despite the fact that the diamond was undoubtedly returned to its owners in the normal course of winding down of celebrations to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee!

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Readers of the current edition of the Weekend Australian newspaper have been treated to a little Yuletide cheer.

For according to that paper, over 100 Australians, mostly of dual Aussie-Lebanese citizenship, have travelled to Syria via northern Lebanon to participate in the revolt against the Assad regime.

Thousands of Australian dollars are thought to be finding their way to the conflict arena, with some of that money lining the pockets of jihadist rebels.

It's known that two Australian combatants have been killed in Syria in recent months: first (in August) Sydney sheik Mustapha al-Majzoub, described by Aussie counter-terrorism personnel as a known Islamic extremist, and (in October) Melbourne kickboxer Roger Abbas, an apparent admirer of al-Majzoub.

The newspaper quotes Peter Drennan, the Australian Federal Police force's deputy commissioner in charge of national security, as saying, inter alia, of this steady Australian presence in Syria:

"These individuals then return with training in the use of weapons and explosives and experience fighting in armed conflict.

The individuals could well use these skills and knowledge for terrorism in Australia."

Aussie experts believe, the newspaper adds, that

"Australians have been drawn to the conflict mainly for two reasons: sectarian loyalty with their fellow Sunnis or the desire to wage jihad. The latter reason is of most concern to counter terrorism officials.

Mindful of the precedent set in Afghanistan during the 1980s, when the struggle against Soviet occupation produced a generation of well-trained, highly radical jihadists who would later wage war against the West, officials worry the Syrian cause could produce a crop of Islamists with combat skills and training.

They stress the problem is not yet on the same scale as the Soviet jihad nor are there indications any of the returned Australians have evinced a desire to attack targets in Australia...."

Friday, 21 December 2012

Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer looks to the Hashemite Kingdom for a solution to the impasse, in his latest article (entitled "Palestine: Reunification Trumps Confederation").

Writes David Singer:

'Reunification of the Arab populated areas of the West Bank with Jordan – as existed between 1948 and 1967 – has again emerged as the most viable solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict.

This follows revelations in the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper that the Palestinian Authority (PA) President and PLO Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, has asked senior Fatah leaders to prepare for the formation of a confederation between a Palestinian State and Jordan.

Abbas has reportedly instructed his advisors to provide him with detailed strategic reports about the best way to conduct negotiations with Jordan to revive the confederation plan – first discussed in 1988 under very different political circumstances to those now existing.

Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, has told the Jerusalem Post ("Abbas mulls forming confederation with Jordan"; December 13) that the confederation idea would be discussed with Jordan – but only after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yusef has also told the Jerusalem Post that any talk about the confederation plan now would hinder efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines "because Israel is hoping that a Palestinian state would be part of Jordan".

The creation of such a state will not occur.

Jordan appears to have been positioning itself to replace the Palestinian Authority as Israel's negotiating partner – as indicated by the following recent events:

1. King Abdullah's uncle – Prince Hassan – stated in October that the West Bank was part of Jordan.

2. PLO heavyweight Farouk Kaddumi followed by pointing to the advantages that could follow Jordan's return to the West Bank.

3. The Jordanian Education Department produced a map in a text book not showing the West Bank as a separate territorial entity.

4. Prince Hassan gave a public address to the Board of Deputies of British Jews at a gala black tie affair in London seven days before Abbas took to the podium at the United Nations on 29 November.

Jordan's return to centre stage has been further strengthened by Abbas's decision to proceed with unilateral action to have the "State of Palestine" admitted as a non-observer State at the United Nations with its claim to sovereignty in 100% of the West Bank being recognised at the same time.

Abbas has already paid dearly for his precipitate action in abandoning negotiations with Israel and going it alone to the United Nations - unleashing the following consequences:

1. Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal defiantly opposing a Palestinian State being created anywhere but on the ashes of Israel.

2. Four hundred million dollars in taxation revenues collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority being withheld over the next four months to meet unpaid water and electricity bills owed by the PA to Israeli utility companies.

3. Israel announcing plans to revive building another 3000 housing units – kept on hold since 2004 to placate and induce the PA to continue negotiations with Israel

4. Abbas being forced to go cap in hand to Arab countries, begging to be helped out to the tune of one hundred million dollars a month to stay afloat

Many of those 138 Nations that voted to admit the State of Palestine as a non-observer state must now be shaking their heads in amazement at the latest announcement by Abbas of a possible confederation of that state with Jordan once statehood has been achieved.

It makes a mockery of their decision to grant non-observer status to a state whose chief proponent has now admitted still does not exist.

Even worse, Abbas is now flagging that this State – when it achieves its independence – will immediately be prepared to surrender that independence and enter into a confederation with Jordan.

The two-state solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict proposed under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap is rapidly turning out to be nothing but a chimera

Abbas's confederation proposal is unlikely to resonate with Jordan – which is well aware of the provision in the PLO Charter proclaiming that Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan is "an indivisible territorial unit".

Confederation would give the PLO a foothold and possible opportunity to repeat its 1970 attempt to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy in pursuit of this stated objective.

The King would also be cognisant of the following resolution supporting reunification of the West Bank and Jordan passed at the 8th meeting of the Palestinian National Council in February-March 1971:

"Jordan is linked to Palestine by a national relationship and a national unity forged by history and culture from the earliest times. The creation of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine would have no basis either in legality or as to the elements universally accepted as fundamental to a political entity.... In raising the slogan of the liberation of Palestine and presenting the problem of the Palestine revolution, it was not the intention of the Palestine revolution to separate the east of the River from the west, nor did it believe the struggle of the Palestinian people can be separated from the struggle of the masses in Jordan…"

This resolution – unlike the November 29 General Assembly resolution – still has relevance and meaning 41 years later for both Jordan and the PLO.

King Abdullah could do worse than reaffirm his agreement with this resolution and rebuff any attempts at confederation - making it clear at the same time that he is prepared to enter into negotiations with Israel to reunify the West Bank with Jordan and restore the status quo so far as is now possible since Jordan occupied the West Bank 45 years ago.

The Hashemites by their astute and diplomatic rule in Jordan for the last 93 years have preserved 78 per cent of former Palestine as an exclusive Arab State in an area originally proposed by the League of Nations for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home.

The peace treaty signed between Jordan and Israel in 1994 has survived intact despite, many occasions when Jordan may have been tempted to end it. This peace treaty already contains negotiating parameters for dealing with such thorny issues in the West Bank as water, refugees and Jerusalem.

Hopefully Israel and Jordan could successfully conclude negotiations where no one – Jew or Arab – would have to leave his present home or business in the West Bank.

Abbas's provocation of both Israel and Hamas in approaching the United Nations has clearly backfired and his proposal to confederate with Jordan can only have further embarrassed and disaffected many countries that supported him.

In the upcoming diplomatic manoeuvring that is now being undertaken regarding the future of the West Bank there is no doubt that reunification with Jordan certainly trumps confederation.'

"A new poll shows growing support for the Islamist Hamas movement in both the West Bank and Gaza. If the elections were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would beat Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.The poll, by veteran pollster Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, found that 48 percent of the electorate in both the West Bank and Gaza would vote for Haniyeh, and 45 percent for Abbas. Just three months ago, a similar poll predicted a victory for Abbas, with 51 percent support over Haniyeh’s 40 percent. The poll showed Haniyeh as the most popular he has been since 2008."

And here's a video of the newly-formedso-called National Unity Brigade made up of youths from various Palestinian factions who aim at a third intifada; read all about it here

Meanwhile Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, in his most recent article ("Palestine: Democracies in Diplomatic Disarray"), written at the end of last week, observes:

'It
has only taken 10 days for 22 of the top 25 leading democratic nations
listed in the Democracy Index 2011 to fall into abject diplomatic
disarray.

Their acute discomfort follows the rush by 17 of them to
vote to admit Palestine as a non-observer state at the UN General
Assembly on November 29 – whilst the other five abstained.

Norway,
Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Finland,
Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Malta, United
Kingdom, Costa Rica, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, Mauritius and Spain –
should have all joined the remaining three – Canada, United States and
the Czech Republic – who cast a "NO" vote.

Instead
they swallowed the following assuring statement by PLO Chairman and
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prior to the vote:

"We
did not come here seeking to delegitimize a State established years
ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the
State that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine."

It mattered not to their democratic sensitivities that President Abbas was a lapsedpresident whose term of office had expired in January 2009 – a situation that would never be tolerated in their countries.

It mattered even less that Abbas was purporting to speak on behalf of a territorial entity he did not control – even as a tyrannical despot.

It
was of no consequence that Abbas claimed to represent a population that
was hopelessly split in its allegiances between the PLO and its arch
rival Hamas.

It was irrelevant that no elections had
been held for the last six years to give the people any say on which one
of these protagonists – or anyone else who might want to throw his hat
into the ring – should represent them.

Foolishly they gave Abbas their vote, supporting

"the
right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to
independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory
occupied since 1967"

Their votes were cast in the full
knowledge that they were adding their voices to those who saw nothing
dishonourable in jettisoning the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap to
the political scrap heap by endorsing the PLO’s unilateral approach to
the United Nations in breach of those internationally negotiated
agreements.

These democracies were happy to undermine
any need for further negotiations to determine the future sovereignty of
the territory in dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority –
effectively limiting any negotiations to when and on what terms 600000
Jews would leave their homes in which they had lived for the last 40
years.

Indignation and shock horror greeted the news
that Israel should have the temerity – just three days after their vote –
to announce its intention to revive its stalled plans to build 3000
housing units in part of the disputed territory bearing the amorphous
title E1 – which these democracies had just determined should be vested
in the Palestinian Authority.

This was the catalyst for all diplomatic hell to burst forth.

These democracies did what all good democracies do to show their displeasure at those who treat their decisions with contempt.

Britain, Spain, Sweden and Denmark called in Israel’s Ambassadors and gave them a diplomatic dressing down.

The
British Foreign Office issued a statement that the E1 project was a
serious violation that threatened the two-state solution.

Speaking
from Papua New Guinea, Australia’s Foreign Minister Senator Carr said
the Australian Government had made clear its call to all sides not to
exploit or overreact to the vote and called in Israel’s Ambassador to
deliver the message.

Senator Carr had reportedly
railroaded the wishes of Australia’s Prime Minister who had wanted to
cast a "No" vote – forcing its replacement with an abstention after
threatening the Cabinet might demand a "Yes" vote if his
recommendation was not accepted.

"I am extremely disappointed with these reported Israeli decisions.

Australia
has long opposed all settlement activity. Such activity threatens the
viability of a two-state solution without which there will never be
security in Israel. Israel’s reported decision to unfreeze planning of
the area known as E1 is especially counter-productive. Australia has
also conveyed these concerns to the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem.
The Australian Government urges both sides to return urgently to the
negotiation table in good faith"

Good faith? Surely
the prospect of any such negotiations had already gone out the window
when most of the world’s 104 democracies had voted as they did.

Three
days later these democracies received their come uppance when Hamas
leader Khaled Meshaal made a triumphant first visit to Gaza.

Addressing a crowd estimated at hundreds of thousands who braved the rain to hear him – Meshaal declared:

"We
will never recognize Israel’s occupation of legitimate Palestinian
lands, and we will not recognize Israel… Palestine is our land from the
Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, and we will never give away an
inch of it… As long as Palestine is ours and Palestine is the land of
Arabism and Islam, we can never recognise the legitimacy of Israel’s
occupation of it ....There is no legitimacy for occupation. Hence, there
is no legitimacy for Israel, however long time lasts."

The
centrepiece of the rally was a huge replica of a type of rocket
terrorists from Gaza fired indiscriminately into Israel’s civilian
population reaching as far as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv just a few weeks
before the General Assembly vote.

The crowd responded enthusiastically:

“We swear by the name of almighty God and his great Prophet to renew our pledge of allegiance and loyalty to Hamas.”

Have any Palestinian diplomats been called into any foreign capitals
and given a dressing down? There are plenty of them working in
democratic states representing this Mickey Mouse United Nations “state”.

Has there been any revulsion expressed at the statements made during
this rally or any indication that the the flow of billions of dollars
into Gaza to assist its baying-for -blood population will cease?

Has Mahmoud Abbas been asked to express his disgust at the rejection
by Meshall of the two-state solution laid out by Abbas at the General
Assembly just eight days earlier?

These 22 democracies and the other democracies who joined them in
voting as they did have done untold harm to resolving the Jewish-Arab
conflict. Their subsequent inability to take concerted action following
Meshaal’s visit to Gaza is appalling.

And that is just 10 days into the life of this infamous Resolution.

Foreign Minister Carr and the other 21 foreign ministers – where are
you hiding, when will you wake up and wipe the egg off your collective
faces?'

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

My previous post tells of the British MP and junior minister of Muslim heritage who's warmly praised Israel as the one place in the Middle East that he would want to settle in, along with his Christian wife and young family, were he for some reason compelled to leave his beloved Britain.

Meanwhile, on Egyptian television, a prominent Syria-based Iraqi jihadist, Ahmad Al Baghdadi Al Hassani, has been insulting Christians ("friends of the Zionists") as "polytheists" and outlining the doom in store for them (including the females of their species) in this world:

"I am a proud, British-born Muslim, and I love my country more than any
other place on earth.

But, if for some reason, I had to leave, with my
young family, and I was told that I must go and live in the Middle East,
where would I decide to go?

Would I choose Dubai, with its vibrant city life and soaring skyscrapers?

No.

Would I choose Saudi Arabia, a fabulously wealthy nation and the birthplace of the holy Prophet Mohammed?

No.

There
is only one place I could possibly go: Israel, the only nation in the
Middle East that shares the same democratic values as Britain.

And the only nation in the Middle East where my family would feel the warm embrace of freedom and liberty."

Thus spoke Sajid Javid, MP for Bromsgrove since 2010 and, since September this year, economic secretary to the Treasury, addressing the 700 attendees at a business lunch of Conservative Friends of Israel last week.

Mr Javid, who is married to a Christian, observed:

"In Britain, we are rightly very proud of our long history as a nation. But we are mere beginners compared to Israel, a nation that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, with the same religion, and the same language as it did 3,000 years ago. Now that’s what I call sustainability!

Israel is a country about which almost everyone has a passionate opinion — an opinion which they’re not usually shy about sharing, especially when that opinion is based on total ignorance.

If you want to have any chance of understanding the complexities of the Middle East, you can’t just read about Israel, you have to experience it."

Monday, 17 December 2012

We see much of AussieBDSers on videos of their Israel-demonising vigils targeting Max Brenner and Seacret, so it's refreshing to learn of antipodean initiatives on Israel's behalf. The following guest post by reader Shirlee tells of such a welcome development in Adelaide, and points out that the non-Jews involved deserve support from the Australian Jewish community.

South Australians Supporting Israel

Shirlee Finn

Here’s a truly inspirational story of a small, newly formed, non-denominational group supporting Israel, started by three people, Ben White, Virginia Snape and Tania Fenwick, who have known one another for a number of years in Adelaide. Virginia has an information blog informing readers about the real situation in Israel. Ben is very involved in informing people about the historical and political truth about the region.

Along with Tania, they often posted comments to one another about issues and happenings in Israel on their Facebook pages. They noted for weeks before Israel actually took action during Operation Pillar of Cloud, that the rocket attacks were increasing and nothing was being said in the media. When the media became obsessed with Israel again, Ben suggested that they started a group and rallied to get support.

Tania has been to Israel and has in her own words

"witnessed the inclusive and multi-cultural society of Israel. I have spent considerable time in Jordan and Israel, mostly in my archaeological pursuits. I am a field archaeologist who has worked with the University of Adelaide, Israeli Antiquities, Associates for Biblical Research and a private contractor. I have a great interest in the history of Israel and find that the archaeological proofs back up that the Jews have indigenous connections to the land.

I have Jewish Israeli and Arab Israeli friends and along with Ben and Virginia are proud supporters of Israel."

A good friend of Tania’s suggested they make contact with the Jewish community. People were interested and supportive. One especially so. Another attended their rally and is now "in touch" with the group.

Tania’s dream was to hold a rally in support of Israel.

She said

"I ordered posters to be printed and tried to get numbers for a rally, but it was difficult to get solid numbers. I had a lot of maybes, and it took a while to understand the process as none of us had ever been part of a rally like this. I informed the Adelaide City Council and Parliament house and contacted the Police who were very supportive.

Christopher Pyne has indicated that he will attend a future rally, as he is a great supporter of Israel but was unable to attend on that day.

The rally went ahead on 9 December. 13 people attended. Although it was a small group, all were enthusiastic. I gave a speech."

Tania continues

"The rally took place on the steps of Parliament House which is quite busy. The great thing is that we had members of the public who waved and cheered from their cars and many who told us they supported Israel. We handed out flyers and the whole thing was non-confrontational but underpinned that Israel wants peace, but it is impossible when Hamas and others are full of hate and have declared that they will never make peace."

She told me:

"I think our peaceful rally with a clear message said so much and highlighted that Israel wants peace.

I notice a lot of other pro-Israel rallies have done the same and I hope the peaceful sentiments speak louder than the aggression shown on the other side!

It went well - and I think it is a great building base for the future."

Tania told me that she has had many comments about the BDS protestors in Rundle Mall who have spoken about how nasty they are and how they harass everyone. In saying this, she then decided to confront this pro-Palestinian group, who picket the Mall, outside the Seacret Spa shop every Friday.

Brave girl!

She told me the obvious after attempting to engage them in meaningful dialogue: that

"they are utterly clueless and when questioned they know nothing of the real situation. I think they are bullies. I told them they were racist as they would not picket an Israeli Arab company, but by singling out an Israeli Jewish company they are.

We are not political activists, but find the anti-Israel and antisemitic undertones intolerable and feel that voices are needed at this time to support Israel."

One other thing she thought was odd was when she was questioned about what she was doing in Israel. She said

"I told him about being a field archaeologist and then he asked me if I was Jewish or Israeli. When I told him I was neither, he was lost for words - this bloke was a real goose!"

To quote Ben

"It was cool to see a dream that Tania had several weeks ago turn into reality! Plenty more to come yet from SASI !"

I have become quite involved with this group and feel they merit some support from the Jewish community in South Australia. I’ll make contact with the community there. I do know someone personally I can contact. I have also had the offer of support from someone here, who will go down to Adelaide in February to offer any assistance he can.

I have followed the pro-Palestinian group there who are very active, for a couple of years now and who run totally unchecked without opposition. Now we have a group of people prepared to stand up and be counted and should be able to count on us for some support.

My question now is there anyone out there that can help in any way please? The South Australian Jewish community is small, and I doubt they have the finances to fund speakers to go there. We have plenty of educational courses here but they have nothing. I am open to suggestion as to what way we can help.

Daphne [daphnedotansonatgmaildotcom] has my permission to pass on my contact details, for those who’d like to help somehow. Thanks

Sunday, 16 December 2012

The BBC's "Middle East editor" Jeremy Bowen has been answering questions on Twitter again.

This time he was gracious enough to hold his hour-longQ&A session yesterday, not (as last time) on a day when observant Jews would be unable to participate.

Question from @24_Humza: Why is there lack of media coverage in regards to Israeli settlement buildings? seems to have disappeared now.
Jeremy answers: It comes in fits and starts. Issue doesn't change much and Middle East busy so settlements can't always be in spotlight. Israel Palestinian conflict still fundamental issue in Middle East and will make many more headlines, as Gaza crisis showed

Question from @cruachan8520: What and where has been your scariest moment?
Jeremy answers: Scariest place ever was Grozny winter of 1994/5. Worst day was when Israelis killed BBC fixer in Lebanon in 2000.

Question from @JackMendel4: Do you think a two-state solution is still a viable option?
Jeremy answers: Two-state solution viable if both sides want it. Hamas and Israeli government showing signs they don't.

And what of Fatah's attitude, given its new logo (seen above)?
Alas, Jezza doesn't tell us.
Here's a corker:

Oliver Kamm ‏@OliverKamm@carolshorenye I agree with @BowenBBC. I am a columnist for the Jewish Chronicle. Don't recognise the complaint of anti-Israel bias at BBC.

Mr Kamm, it seems reasonable to point out, leans, like the prevailing ethos of the BBC, very much to the liberal left. And according to his Wikipedia entry his mother is the sister of a famous former BBC journalist, none other than "the man in the white suit," Martin Bell.

Update: Here's Bowen reliving that "worst day" of his life; that incident introduces that video and there is a great deal about it later in the video:

"Isn't it ironic that many in Europe who recently celebrated 25 years
of the reunification of Berlin are at the same time calling for the
division of another capital on another continent?....

Now more than ever, Israel and Jerusalem need real friends and real
leaders. The threat we face now isn't from foreign invaders, but rather
from international diplomats seeking to locate a simple but incorrect
solution to the complex relationship between Israel and the
Palestinians. As far as Jerusalem is concerned, we must recall that no
divided city in history has ever succeeded."

Thus (having noted the Jewish People's three-millenia-long ties to the golden city) writes Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem, in the Wall Street Journal this week.

'In 1967, Israel reunified its capital, Jerusalem, which had been divided between Israeli and Jordanian control since the Jewish state's founding in 1948. Since then the city has maintained freedom of access, movement and religion. Peace-seeking pilgrims of all faiths can again visit the holy places without limitation or restriction. Tourism to Jerusalem is thriving, as is the city's economy, and its per capita crime rate is among the world's lowest....

By 2030, the city's population will expand to one million residents from 800,000 today (33% Muslim, 2% Christian and 65% Jewish). Where does the world suggest we put these extra 200,000 residents? The expansion of Jerusalem's residential areas is essential for the natural growth of all segments of our population. It enables Jewish and Arab families alike to grow and remain in the city. The capital of a sovereign nation cannot be expected to freeze growth rather than provide housing to families of all faiths eager to make their lives there.

As for "E-1," this land has always been considered the natural site for the expansion of contiguous neighborhoods of metropolitan Jerusalem. "E-1" strengthens Jerusalem. It does not impede peace in our region. The international alarm about planned construction is based solely on the misplaced dreams of the Palestinians and their supporters for a divided Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has been and forever will be the heart and soul of the Jewish people. It is also the united and undivided capital of the state of Israel. The Jewish people and the Jewish state have a bumpy road ahead. We appreciate the support of our friends, and only through continued bold leadership at home—leadership willing to stand up to pressure from foreign capitals—will we get through this challenging time.'

Thursday, 13 December 2012

Daniel Mayer (1909-96) was a French Jew of socialist principles who played a distinguished part in the Resistance and from 1958-75 headed the Ligue des droits de l'homme.

A fortnight ago (19th-20th November), evidently in revenge for Operation Pillar of Cloud (Defence) by Israel, pupils at a Jewish lycée named after him in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, and run by the education charity ORT, were viciously attacked or otherwise threatened in three separate incidents.

In the first incident, on the 19th, a group of pupils near the school were set upon by six assailants, who struck without warning, leaving one boy with a broken nose and smashed tooth and subjecting his three companions to lesser injuries.

In a sinister development that same day a man, identifying himself as a
Muslim, was encountered on school premises by security guards, who gave
chase but failed to catch him.

The following day, a 17-year-old girl who attends the school was waiting for a friend at a nearby Métro station when she was manhandled and verbally sexually harassed by five men (described as "nord-africains"), one of whom wore a keffiyeh.

When the anguished teenager, shoved, cried out, one of the attackers told her:

"Tais-toi ou bien on va te jeter sur les rails et te faire comme à Gaza ! [Shut up or we'll throw you on the track and make you like Gaza!]"

These incidentswere only the latest in a number of such episodes at Jewish schools and other Jewish properties in France, but, as with such episodes elsewhere, we're unlikely to be told about them in the mainstream English-language press, and especially not in leftist outlets such as the BBC.

It is in response to Islamic antisemitism in France that aliya to Israel by French Jews is on the rise. (See, for example, here)

And it is in response to perceptions that France is becoming islamified that an organisation of young people, calling themselves Generation Identitaire, as this video indicates.

Also appearing in it is the writer Renaud Camus, very much their elder, whose book Le Grand Remplacement encapsulates how theiy feel (incidentally,it has been claimed in the past that Camus is an antisemite, but I am unable to assess the veracity or otherwise of that).

Danby, at one stage of his career the only Jew in federal Parliament, is (like Foreign Minister Bob Carr, once considered friendly towards Israel) a leading figure on the Right of his party (the ALP), and has been a pro-Israel advocate since his student days.

In his column he condemns what he sees as Carr's manipulative betrayal of Israel, which, he claims involved Carr ringing around keyparty figures to ensure that pro-Israel Prime Minister Julia Gillard (pictured, with Bibi Netanyahu) was undermined.

Writes Danby, inter alia:

"As NSW premier he [Carr, in 2003] awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian ideologue Hanan Ashrawi. As the only major figure in the Australian Jewish community to defend his actions, I used the Voltaire argument, namely his right to say things with which others disagreed....

Parliament last month saw a switch in Australia's stance at the UN creation of a Palestinian state after Julia Gillard's pro-Israel position was challenged and then overturned by Carr and others....

Some caucus members worry about every Palestinian - who is, by aid dollars per capita, the most highly subsidised minority in the world, including $350 million of Australian taxpayer funds.

By contrast, poor gentle Tibet gets little sympathy. More than 80 Tibetans have burned themselves to death in the past 18 months as a result of Chinese oppression.

Tibetans launch terrorist attacks on no one. They acquire no Iranian missiles to attack Chinese cities; they strap on no suicide vests to blow up no children on school buses.

Yet the Tibetans can't get a meeting with our Foreign Minister and they don't get a dollar from the UN.

We avert our eyes when a real power like China crushes under its boot an ancient people like the Tibetans. Yet our Foreign Minister asks of the Palestinian vote at the UN: "How will I explain this on the steps of the mosque at Lakemba?"

Nor are there any caucus resolutions over the 200,000 in the living death of North Korean concentration camps or the 300,000 African Muslims of Darfur butchered by their Islamist government in Sudan.

But the ostensible, domestic motivations for our changed vote are the most troubling aspect of the debate inside the Labor Party during the final week of parliament. It is self-defeating to suggest, as was widely claimed, that voters in western Sydney (who swung against the NSW Labor Party by 30-40 per cent at the last state election) will be influenced by votes at the UN.

Corruption at the heart of both the Left and Right of NSW Labor and the clear lack of infrastructure, particularly in western Sydney, are the real turn-off in Sydney seats. Phoning around, then speaking on the matter and ultimately threatening to speak against the Prime Minister is unforgivable behaviour for any minister in any cabinet government...."

In a recent column in the Jerusalem Post, the internationally-known and widely respected Jewish leader Isi Leibler, for a quarter of a century the dominant figure in the Australian Jewish community until he made aliya over a dozen years ago, also condemns Bob Carr's position, contrasting it with the demonstrated pro-Israel stance of almost all Australian federal administrations (regardless of party) down the years.

Explains Leibler, with justification:

"Much of this historical bipartisanship
can be attributed to a vigorous Jewish community, renowned as being one
of the most vibrant Zionist communities in the Diaspora. Its leadership
has never failed, to speak upand take a principled stand on behalf of
Israel when appropriate."

Of Carr, he writes in part:

"On a few recent occasions, votes by Australia at the UN appeared to deviate from the norm, but this was rationalized as temporary pandering to the Arabs to solicit votes for elections to the Security Council.

The dramatic tilt against Israel was spearheaded by Foreign Minister Bob Carr who exerted enormous pressure on the Labor caucus and compelled Prime Minister Gillard to backtrack from her decision to oppose the Palestinian initiative. Had she not complied, she would have been humiliatingly defeated and possibly toppled as Prime Minister.

Carr was vigorously supported by former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, at one time one of Israel’s greatest supporters, notorious (whilst inebriated) for having called on Israel to “nuke” the Palestinians if they failed to halt the terror. Hawke was intimately connected to Israel’s Labor leaders but after Menahem Begin was elected Prime Minister in 1977, he changed his views and today regards Israel as “intransigent”. He was supported by another veteran Labor politician, former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, who since retiring from government has been consistently canvassing the Arab cause. Both fervently lobbied Labor ministers to repudiate Gillard’s policy....

Carr visited Israel in August this year meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders including Ashrawi.

On his return to Australia, he raised eyebrows when he dispatched a delegation to Iran to solicit votes for Australia’s UN Security Council candidature. There were also unconfirmed rumors circulating that undertakings were made to the Arabs in return for their support.

His backing of Israel during the Gaza campaign was lukewarm. In the Senate, he made the astonishing statement: “Any response by Israel needs to be proportionate and not lead to civilian casualties. We have on more than a dozen occasions called on both sides to exercise restraint”.

Setting aside the moral equivalence inherent in this remark, he was effectively demanding that Israel – which more than any army in history goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties – take no action to defend its citizens from missile attacks.

He was even more forthcoming after the UN vote when he proclaimed “I don’t apologize for the fact that Australia has interests in the Arab world. If we had voted no, that would have been a body blow to our interests in over 20 countries. The truth is they all see this as a bedrock issue.” He also dismissed suggestions that the Palestinians intended to exploit their new observer status to initiate charges of war crimes against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

Carr’s change of policy was confirmed when he joined the European bandwagon and hauled Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem over the coals following Israel’s decision to build homes in the Jerusalem suburbs and adjacent areas – which the Bush Administration had agreed should remain within Israel....

[U]nless Gillard succeeds in
persuading the Labor Party caucus to change its approach, in the short
term Israel should not expect support from Australia under Foreign
Minister Carr. Like many of our European “friends”, Carr may continue
insisting that his motivations are based upon having the Jewish state’s
security at heart and trying to save Israel from itself. But when the
chips are down, he will abandon us as he did at the UN General Assembly.""

A recent scene in Sydney

Leibler also notes a salient demographic factor:

"With close to 500,000 Moslems now living
in Australia, many concentrated in key Labor Party electorates, their
influence has impacted on a number of Labor Ministers. Combined with the
vehement anti-Israeli orientation of the far left Labor factions, this
enabled Carr to persuade the Cabinet to tilt its policy against Israel."

(The number of Jews in Australia is around 100,000.)

Incidentally, the results of Britain's 2011 Census were announced today.

Of potential relevance to the way politicians react to issues affecting Israel, that Census shows that there are 263,000 declared Jews – and 2.7 million Muslims.

Terror Groups Eyeing Israel's Destruction from inside NGOs

Two stalwarts go sleuthing:

For their findings cliick on image

"The research suggests that antisemitism is the fuel that primes the PSC engine"

To read the research report click on image

'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'Rod Liddle (2018)

Pro-Israel Down Under

Shalom and Welcome to my blog!I'm the little Aussie blogger who took the screenshot and broke the story of Stephen Sizer's notorious 9/11 post, and I've since broken two other stories that subsequently went viral, one Australia-wide and one, thanks to the sterling work of two other bloggers, worldwide. I remain very surprised and very honoured to have been co-winner, Best Pro-Israel Blog, Hasby Awards, 2013Please "Like" me on Facebook; my Facebook page ishere

'In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel ... is different.... Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel's Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.... Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East.' Bibi Netanyahu (20 Iyar 5771; 24 May 2011)Scroll to end for more quotations

Tired of anti-Balfour agitprop?

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Balfour and Beyond

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Try this for Sizer

Sizer 101. Click image for link

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

BDS is Antisemitic

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The Bigotry & Immorality of BDS

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'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself. Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world. [L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

"Selling a house to a Jew is a betrayal of Allah"

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Maps of Mendacity & Mischief

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These misleading maps were deliberately prepared to date from 1946 – intentionally papering over the momentous events that had occurred between 1917 and 1945. Attempts to unravel binding precepts of international law established between 1917 and 1945 – and failing to insist on their being upheld and enforced – has a lot to do with the sorry situation the world finds itself in today.David Singer (2016)

How They Twist the Truth!

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Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying... Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth.David Singer (2016)

Exposing Lies

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The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance. The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years?David Singer (2016)

Telling the Truth

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The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.Andrew Roberts (historian)

A voice of courage & reason

He knows, y'know

An Aussie demo against BDS

On the left, black people are usually allowed to define what’s racism; women can define sexism; Muslims are trusted to define Islamophobia. But when Jews call out something as antisemitic, leftist non-Jews feel curiously entitled to tell Jews they’re wrong, that they are exaggerating or lying or using it as a decoy tactic – and to then treat them to a long lecture on what anti-Jewish racism really is. Jonathan Freedland (The Guardian, 29 April 2016)

An awkward fact for some!

Socialist thought was tainted from its very origins with the heavy baggage of anti-Jewish stereotypes. Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal:The Left, the Jews, and Israel (2012)

BDS hypocrisy!

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Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

A nuclear Iran threatens our existence

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.Eric Hoffer (1968)

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אם תרצו , אין זו אגדה

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs...Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

What has happened to the 800,000 Jews who lived for over 2000 years in the Arab lands ...? Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of racism when I can point with pride ... to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Chaim Herzog (6 Kislev 5736; 10 November 1975)

I stand with Israel, I stand with the Jews.... I defend their right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. And, disgusted by the antisemitism of many Europeans ... I am shamed by this shame that dishonours my country and Europe.Oriana Fallaci

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves.Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies.George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

The choice before us is not between victory and defeat, but between victory and annihilation. We therefore have not the slightest intention of allowing the re-creation of the conditions of vulnerability in which we found ourselves, abandoned and alone, in the summer of 1967. Diplomat Michael Comay (1970)

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

About Me

I'm a writer/researcher, with many academic books and articles under my own name. Daphne Anson is my blogging alias. Combining the names of two ships, it's a moniker of special significance to me - I'm a naval history buff. I use an alias owing to a perceived need to keep my blogging and professional identities separate. An Aussie, I've long been interested in
politics and foreign affairs, having studied International Relations in the USA and Britain for my first degree, and I also hold a doctorate. I began blogging in response to the exponential rise in antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of the Mavi Marmara affair.
Another reason I use an alias: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/08/alias-two-ships-daphne-anson.html

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The spiritual awakening which Jews experienced almost without exception last June must not be allowed to become a sealed and finished episode.... Support must be rallied among men of goodwill and their governments if we are to reach that secure and just peace in the attainment of which Israel has never ceased to believe. President Zalman Shazar (1968)

Our judicial system is one of the best in the whole world. Our democracy is the only one in the Middle East.... Just imagine, what would have happened if the Arabs had, like us, accepted the Partition resolution? There would be a Palestinian State living side by side in peace, security, and, I can add, prosperity with the State of Israel, 62 years later. [C]ome to Israel, and realize how small Israel is and what a wonderful place it is. Diplomat Gabriella Shalev (2010)

Israel's Arab citizens are the only Arabs in the Middle East who enjoy genuine civic and religious rights. Religious freedom is protected in Israel as nowhere else, tragically, in the Middle East. And civil rights, of course, there's a supreme court judge who is an Arab, ministers including in my government who are Arabs, Druze, and members of parliament who are Arabs and so on. I would like to see more involvement of Arabs in civil life.Bibi Netanyahu on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show (5 Nov. 2017)